Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of China’s Huawei Technologies and the daughter of its founder, Ren Zhengfei, was arrested at Vancouver International Airport at the request of American law enforcement authorities. Suspected of violating US trade sanctions against Iran, Meng faced extradition to the United States. The Chinese embassy in Ottawa, however, denied Meng had broken any laws and demanded her immediate release. She was released on C$10 million bail on 11 December and confined to one of her two Vancouver homes. Her arrest sparked a diplomatic crisis between China and Canada that saw China detain at least 13 Canadians in retaliation.

Media convergence refers to the merging of previously distinct media technologies and platforms through digitization and computer networking. This is also known as technological convergence. Media convergence is also a business strategy whereby communications companies integrate their ownership of different media properties. This is also called media consolidation, media concentration or economic convergence. (See also: Media Ownership.)

Joseph-Armand Bombardier, entrepreneur, inventor of the snowmobile and Ski-Doo (born 16 April 1907 in Valcourt, QC; died 18 February 1964 in Sherbrooke, QC). While Bombardier’s many inventions demonstrate his mechanical skills, his ability not only to respond to transportation needs but to create them gave rise to his namesake corporation’s record of shrewd business and innovation.

Industrialization is a process of economic and social change. It is one that shifts the centres of economic activity onto the focus of work, wages and incomes. These changes took two forms in Canada, beginning in the 19th century. First, economic and social activities were transformed from agriculture and natural resource extraction to manufacturing and services. Second, economic and social activities shifted from rural cottage industries to urban industrial pursuits. Industrialized production took place under the privately owned factory system, in which a larger proportion of the population expected to be wage earners for all of their working lives. Therefore, industrialization brought major changes, not only in work and the economy, but in the way society was organized and in the relations among different groups in society.
Although it has evolved over nearly two centuries, the process of industrialization is considered revolutionary — as the term Industrial Revolution suggests — because it marked the shift from feudalism to capitalism, and from agriculture to manufacturing and services — changes that fundamentally altered human existence.

Alexander Graham Bell, teacher of the deaf, inventor, scientist (born 3 March 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland; died 2 August 1922 near Baddeck, NS). Alexander Graham Bell is generally considered second only to Thomas Alva Edison among 19th- and 20th-century inventors. Although he is best known as the inventor of the first practical telephone, he also did innovative work in other fields, including aeronautics, hydrofoils and wireless communication (the “photophone”). Moreover, Bell himself considered his work with the deaf to be his most important contribution. Born in Scotland, he emigrated to Canada in 1870 with his parents. Bell married American Mabel Hubbard in 1877 and became a naturalized American citizen in 1882. From the mid-1880s, he and his family spent their summers near Baddeck on Cape Breton Island, where they built a large home, Beinn Bhreagh. From then on, Bell divided his time and his research between the United States and Canada. He died and was buried at Baddeck in 1922.

Igloo (iglu in Inuktitut, meaning “house”), is a winter dwelling made of snow.
Historically, Inuit across the Arctic lived in igloos before the introduction of modern, European-style homes. While igloos are no longer the common type of housing used by the Inuit,
they remain culturally significant in Arctic communities. Igloos also retain practical value: some hunters and those seeking emergency shelter still use them. (See also Architectural History of Indigenous Peoples in Canada.)

Mabel Gardiner Hubbard Bell, aeronautics financier, community leader, social reformer and advocate for the deaf (born 25 November 1857 in Cambridge, Massachusetts; died 3 January 1923 in Chevy Chase, Maryland). Bell actively supported and contributed
to the work of her husband, inventor Alexander Graham Bell. Her financial investment in his work made herthe first financier of the aviation industry in North America. She was a community leader in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, where the Bell family spent their
summers. She was also a social reformer and supported innovation in education.

The digital economy is the economic activity conducted through digital technologies such as the Internet. It is also called the Internet economy, the new economy or the web economy. Many scholars see the digital economy as the fourth industrial revolution. As of 2013, it consumed approximately 10 per cent of the world’s electricity. Many of the world’s biggest companies operate in the digital economy. A growing number of Canadians depend on it for their livelihood. In 2017, nearly 5 per cent of all jobs in Canada were in the digital economy. The gross domestic product (GDP) connected to it represented 5.5 per cent of Canada’s total economy — a bigger percentage than mining or oil and gas extraction. However, the often-hidden infrastructure of the digital economy brings new threats to the environment. The rise of cryptocurrencies could also dramatically change how people buy and sell things.